CHAPTER 3 BUYER BEHAVIOR. Buying Units and Roles Buying Process Influences on Buyer Behavior.
Theory of cross-cultural buyer-behavior
Transcript of Theory of cross-cultural buyer-behavior
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THJCHIY OF CROSS-CULTURAL BUYER- BEHAVIOR
Jagdish N. Sheth, Univ. of Illinoisand
S. Prakash Sethi, Univ. of California
#115
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College of Commerce and Business Administration
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
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University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
May 31, 1973
THJCSIY OF CROSS-CULTURAL BUYER-BEHAVIOR
Jagdish N. Sheth, Univ. of Illinoisand
S. Prakash Sethi, Univ. of California
#115
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THEORY OF CROSS-CULTURAL BUYER-BEHAVIOR
Jagdlsh N. Sheth, University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana&
So Prakash Sethi, University of California, Berkeley
Introduction
The past two decades have seen a phenomenal growth in the operations
of imiltinational corporations (KHCs) in various parts of the world. This
growth is not confined to capital investment or manufacturing operations,
but has been extended increasingly to marketing activities. However, the
expansion of marketing activities heQ not been accompanied by a systematic
study of the differences in buyer behavior in various countries (socio-
political and economic entities) and the causes that might account for
such differences. This is particularly unfortunate because a lack of
understanding in this area has led to innumerable economic inefficiencies
In resource allocation, from the viewpoint of both the MNCs and the countries
Involved. It has also caused sociopolitical conflicts among various parties.
Multinational marketing involves introducing new products or ideas
into different cultures. On one hand, it may be no more than shifting
consumption from one brand of a oroduct to another brand of the same
product. On the. other hand, It may ieac to massive -locial changes in the
manner of consumption^ -ype of products consumed, and even in social
organization* Therefore, a haphazard marketing effort, even though it
may be successful in the short run, may lead to far-reaching and unde-
sirable, though unintended, consequences*
Current Approaches to Multinational Marketing
Interpretations of facts abound, and there are as many successful
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marketing strategies as there are practitioners. However, these strategies
can be classified into two broad categories. One approach implies that
industrialism has a culture all its own: that basic human needs and
behavior are similar everywhere; and that, except for minor changes to
adjust to peculiar local circurastancea, essentially the sane products can
be sold with similar promotional appeals in all overseas markets (Kerr
1961; Buzzell 1968; Roostal 1965) « The other approach contends that all
countries are different, have their own cultures, and face a unique set
of problems that keep changing over time. This group argues that there
cannot be any single unified theory of intertiational marketing that can be
universally applicable and that all decisions in this area must be of an
ad hoc nature, with the applicability of their findings confined only to
a given region and/or point in time (Burson 1965),
Notwithstanding the validity of the two approaches, they do have
some theoretical support that merits brief discussion. The first approach
is based on the concept of "universal institutional types" or the "universality
of cultural traits" first propounded by the anthropologist Malinowski (1944)
and more recently revised and presentee" by Murdock (1951) and Nadel (1965),
The en^ihasis here was on those categories of culture that were universal
in being invariant points of reference for description and comparison.
The other approach, also based in anthropology and, to some extent, in
sociology, directed its attention overwhelmingly to the distinctiveness
of each culture and to the differences in human customs as opposed to their
Similarities (Benedict 1934; Kluckhohn 1958).
Neither of these approaches, in itself, is suitable for a cross-
cultural study of buyer behavior. The former is based on a superficial
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understanding of the effect of learning on human behavior and does not
take into account the effects of cultural factors that may inalterably
change behavior patterns in different c Itures. On the other hand, the
latter seems to overeirqphasize the overt differences in the behavior of
the consumer in different cultures while ignoring the underlying psycho-
logical processes that might provide us with a unifying theme.
Purpose and Scope of The Paper
Our objective is to present a comprehensive theory of cross-cultural
buyer behavior. If it is agreed that buyer behavior within a country is
exceedingly complex, we think cross-cultural buyer behavior is even a more
complex phenomenon. It is, therefore, not sufficient to understand and
theorize about it either in a very siiif»listic-holistic manner or in a piece-
meal fashion. We must match the complexity of the phenomenon with equally
realistic and comprehensive conceptual and analytical imagination. In
fact, we should learn our lesson from the trial-and-error process with
which within-country buyer behavior has been researched in the past so
as to avoid coiumitting the same errors cf ommission and commission (Sheth
1967, 1972).
Any theory must perform the following four functions (Rychlak 1968;
Howard and Sheth 1969): (1) descriptive function by which the theory
specifies in a parsimonious waj' the antecedent conditions which explain
a phenomenon; (2) delimiting function by which the theory explicitly limits
its scope by appropriately defining the phenomenon to be explained;
(3) integrative function by which it must systematically relate all
relevant research evidence and reconcile logically other explanations;
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and (4) generative function by which it should provide deductive hypotheses
for future testing and verification.
We don't believe our theory to be described in this paper is yet a
fully developed to satisfy all the four furxtions. We hope to revise it
in the due course to fully meet the delimiting and the generative functions.
However, we do think the theory is at -i level of development to satisfy,
if not to optimize, the other f^o functions.
There are a number of distinctive characteristics to our theory of
cross-cultural buyer behavior:
First, it is a comprehensive theory primarily based upon numerous
theories and studies in the areas of diffusion, rural sociology and
especially cultural anthropology.
Second, the theory takes the viewpoint that multinational marketing
activities can be looked upon as processes of innovation and change since
they consist of introducing familiar products or services of one country
to other cultures where such products or services are perceived to be
new and different. The magnitude of innovative activities will, of
course, vary from simple introduction of a new brand to completely
changing a culture's consumption patterr. Accordingly, the phenomenon
the theory is concerned with i55 the process of adoption and diffusion
of products and services raerkcted b;; MNCs,
Third, the theory is descriptive rather than normative. It simply
describes and explains, with a minitnum number of theoretical constructs,
how consumers living in different cultures perceive, evaluate and adopt
products and services marketed by MNCs, It has no value judgments woven
around the illusive concept of economic rationality. In fact, we think
the question of rationality is irrelevant or at least less meaningful
in the cross-cultural context of consumption due to enormous differences
in values among cultures.
Fourth, the theory atterripts to explain differences among cultures
in their perceptions, evaluations and consumption behavior of a conmon
product or service. It is not a theory of individual differences even
though the units of measurement and analysis are households, industrial
organizations or individual customers. Our interest is in cross-country
differences and not v/ithin-country differences. To this extent, the
theory sharply differs from several well-knox-m theories of buyer behavior
(Andreasen 1965; Nicosia 1966; Engd, Blackwell & Kollat 1968; Howard &
Sheth 1969; Sheth 1971 & 1972a).
Fifth, the theory consists of four types of constiructs and variables
following the tradition of theory building often utilized by the first
author in his earlier writings (Sheth 1957 j Howard and Sheth 1969; Sheth
1971 & 1972a) » These are called the exogeneous, the endogeneous, the input
and the output variables or constructs. The exogeneous variables are the
"givens" or the "constraints" of the ex^jlanatory situation; they are not
explained in terms of their structure or any changes in them over time.
In short, the exogeneous variebXes delimit the theory. The endogeneous
variables constitute the theory; the variables are properly defined, their
network of relationship is fully detailed and often quantified, and any
changes in them are explained and predicted by a cet of determinants. The
input variables constitute a set of complex stimuli which impinge upon
the system of endogeneous variables and get mediated through that system.
The output variables are a set of responses, behavioral and cognitive, which
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the theory delimits itself to explain and predict.
Sixth, the constructs of the theory are measurable at the individual
level even though the theory is e;;plicit.ly limited to explaining differences
among aggregates^ Furthermore, each ccstT-uct is. presumed to be multivariate
and multidimensional making it necesss.ry to prcovide for a number of indicators
for the construct. On each indi we propose to estimate the level
of a culture by its mean value and the scatter by its variance. This
allows the theory to utilize uumercas statistical procedures which are
based on variance-covariances. The techniques explicitly relevant for
comparative cross-cultural analyses are simple AllOVAj multivariate ,
ANOVA» discriminant analysis and profiling-clustering methods.
Description of The Theory
It is difficult to fully describe the theory in a short paper. In
order to present a succinct description, we will not elaborate in this
paper how the axogeneous variables exert their influence on the system
of endogeneouB variables. Instead, we will provide a list of references
whose thinking and research has been inptrumental in our choice of those
exogeneous variables. Secondly, we will first briefly summarize the
process of adoption of new products £.ud services as envisioned by the
theory and then describe in detail each of the endogeneous constructs.
Brief Summary of Tho Adoption Process
As we mentioned earlier, it is easy to envision the multinational
marketing activities as processes of innovations and change. The MNCs
introduce new products and services with a specific marketing mix of the
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basic four Ps, This marketing effort is lookad upon by the buyers as
connunications about the innovation with identifiable source, channel
and message coinponents. The sourca is often the commercial IWC but not
always because other sources such as governmental agencies, news releases
and documentaries as well as word-of-mouth, also provide communication
about the innovation to customa^'s in a culture. For eitample, the marketing
of contraceptives or nutrition ia many underdeveloped countries.
The communication about the innovation influences the country's
propensity to change as well as evaluation of the innovation. Propensity
to change is the degree of receptivity a country manifests for any
innovation in a product class due to dissatisfaction v;ith existing alternatives.
Evaluation of innovation refers to the perceived instrumentality of the
innovation to satisfy a set of choice criteria relevant for the product
class* However, the influence of communication on either the propensity
to change or the evaluation of the innovation is limited by two sets of
factors. The first set of factors relate to the selectivity of human
mind with which customers process information. Unless the culture is
ready for the change, ths customers will be insensitive to any communication
on an innovation and, thereforSj selectively pay less attention to it.
For example, cigar smoking among the U, 3, women has been a very slow
process of change, Siuilerly, unless the new innovation is favorably
perceived by a culture, the communication will be cognitively distorted
so that its impact will be minimal. Instant coffee has been very rapidly
adopted by most cultures due to its convenience.
The second set of factors relate to the con5>ensatory manner with
which generalized opinion leadership in a country as well as its cultural
-8-
life style, also exert influence on propensity to change and evaluation
of innovation. Often it is probable that the marketing efforts of
MNCs are incompatible with the cultural life style or the generalized
opinion leadership and, therefore, have minimal impacts in the market
place. The numerous examples of product failures in cross-cultural
context are clearly due to this compensatory nature. For example, canned
soups and cake mixes were favorably received in the U.S.A. but have met
with considerable resistance in European countries. It is, therefore,
extremely critical to assess the nature of the influence of cultural
values and opinion leadership in a given product class prior to
introducing new products in that country.
If a culture is high on propensity to change and the specific
innovation is favorably evaluated, the customers will manifest a tendency
to adopt the innovation. This seems to be the classic history of soft
drinks such as Coca-Cola. However, a number of things may intervene
between evaluation and adoption. First, the customers may manifest
active search and support for their decision to adopt the innovation.
This cognitive search may be with respect to both the generalized opinion
leadership or the conmunication sources. Second, a number of factors also
influence the tendency to adopt and, therefore, become coiipensatory to
the evaluation process. We have identified per capita income, marketing
Institutions, and value of time as the three most critical factors. Per
capita income of a country represents the economic resources available
among customers. If it is too low, the innovation may be inhibited from
being adopted and if it is high, many innovations which are trivial and
not highly favorable in their evaluations will get adopted. For exan^le,
it has been difficult to market high protein foods in less developed
countries due to substantial high costs of processed foods and staples
(Sheth & Sudman 1972). On the other hand, many rich nations adopt new
products niore to satisfy novelty-curiosity needs than to derive functional
utilities. Similarly, marketing institutions of distribution may become
bottlenecks for highly favorable innovations. Once again, this has been
a serious problem in rural areas of less developed countries. Finally,
value of time often becomes a facilitating factor especially when the Innovations
are time-saving conveniences. The enormous borrowing by the Japanese of
Western conveniences is a classic example.
If the adoption tendency is strong, it will result in trial of the
innovation. The consequences from the actual trial or watching someone
else try it will be recorded by customers as tentative satisfaction. If
the tentative satisfaction is positive, the innovation will be permanently
adopted except for some nonpredictable situational factors. These factors
include political instability, recessions, government controls and the like.
On the other hand, if it is negative, the culture will reject tha new product
or seirvice.
Finally, fhe permanent adoption o"" an innovation will produce some
impact on both the propensity to change and evaluation of innovation.
If the culture is satisfied with the outcomes from the permanent adoption,
it will manifest greater receptivity to change and better predisposition
toward the MNC which introduced the innovation.
Description of Constructs of The Theory
Now we describe each of the major constructs in theory represented
in Figure 1. As mentioned before, we will minimize our discussion of
the exogeneous variables in this paper.
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1, Propensity to Change : A central construct in the theory is
propensity to change. It is a product class specific construct
and refers to the receptivity of a culture in seeking change from
its present methods and alternatives of consumption. At a point
in time we presume that countries vary in their propensity to change
so that some countries are anxious for an immediate change and others
are resistant to any change in the choice offerings of a given
product class.
Propensity to change is a multivariate profile construct and
not a univariate scale construct because we believe the receptivity
to change in a country may be due to a number of factors and the
same degree of receptivity across cultures may be for different
reasons. For example, the less developed countries may be receptive
to change from the bicycle era to automotive era due to industrial
activity, urban development and mobility, but the advanced countries
may seek change from the automotive era due to air pollution, urban
crises and scarcity of time. We believe that propensity to change
can be measured on a psychological profile which assesses the degree
of dissatisfaction with existing alternatives in a product class and
the aspirations of a culture to improve itself with respect to that
product category.
In our theory, the level and variance of propensity to change
of a culture is determined by three constructs. Perhaps the most
important construct is the cultural life style of individuals in
a society. It refers to a generalized inventory of activities,
interests and opinions manifested by customers in a culture with
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respect to those "cultural universals" which are salient to
consumption behavior. We will describe Cultural Life Style
later in more detail. It is sufficient to note here that as the
Cultural Life Style of a country changes, it will impact upon
propensity to change. However, there are two important considerations.
First, we believe the change in Cultural Life Style of a country is
a slow process and hence it is more evolutionary and natural. Second,
change in Cultural Life Style has differential impact on propensity
to change depending upon the specific product class. In other words.
Cultural Life Style may, for example, closely control propensity to
change in people's food habits than in their recreational habits.
The second factor is Generalized Opinion Leadership, It refers
to the special role assigned to or achieved by a select group of
individuals and institutions in any society to take the leadership
of the country in the constant search for change and improvement.
We will describe the construct in more detail later. However,
Generalized Opinion Leadership is more likely to provide for rapid
and planned changes in propensity t change especially in the newly
independent nations or so-called the third world.
Neither of these two factors is directly within the managerial
control of multinational corporations. However, MNCs can exert
influence on a culture's propensity to change by the effective
utilization of the marketing mix with which to communicate about
the innovation. The third factor, therefore, is the input construct
called Conanunication About Innovation, It refers to the process of
communication from both commercial and other sources about various
benefits existing in the innovations through a variety of channels of
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comnunication. Once again, we will delay a detailed description of
the input construct. Here we should discuss the role of Gotnznunication
About Innovation in influencing Propensity To Change, First, we
believe that communication from a commercial source is likely to have
limited impact on Propensity To Change unless Cultural Life Style
and Generalized Opinion Leadership facilitate it. In fact, we believe
that it will have no impact or even a negative intact if the other
two factors are opposite in their inf?.uence on Propensity To Change,
Second, communication from commercial MBC sources may also be
compensated or facilitated by cottHminication from other sources including
neutral (public sources) and social (friends, relatives) sources.
In other words, the word-of-mouth communication can effectively wipe
out all commercial efforts especially in less developed countries.
This has been notoriously witnessed in the cigarette industry where
competitive companies unethically spread rumors about the brand.
In the above discussion, it is clear that the three factors are
presumed to be compensatory in their relationship to Propensity To
Change. This car. be expressed ra^ithematically as follows:
PTC = B, [CLS] + 3o [GOL] + B- [CAl]
PTC = Propp.nsity To Change in e product classCLS = Cultural Life StyleGOL = Generalized Opinion LeadershipCAI = Conmiunication About Innovation
2, Cultural Life Style is a generalized inventory of activities,
interests and opinions on 6 set of cultural universals. Cultural
universals are patterns of behavior related to innate, learned and
social needs of people in a culture. Anthropologists have made
-13-
strong strides in defining and measuring cultural differences and
similarities in their manifestations of cultural universals (Suniner
and Keller 1927; Malinowski 1926; Kluckhohn 1958; Murdock 1965;
Kluckhohn and Murray 1949). We, however, differ from the traditional
anthropological thinking in our definition of cultural universals
and its measurement. First, Cultural Life Style is not limited to
overt behavior only but also extended to the cognitive areas of
interests and opinions. This is because our theory is not extended
to buyer behavior of primitive societies where language and linguistic
communication is either not possible or very difficult. To this
extent) we are following the recent development of life style scales
in the understanding and segmentation of consumer behavior (e.g.
Wells and Tigert 1971), However, at the same time we do not believe
in the direct borrowing of any inventory scale such as the AIO scale
for cross-cultural research. Considerable adaptation may be necessary
before a standardized inventory can be developed for cross-cultural
research.
Second, our construct, Cultur. i Life Style, is operational at
the individual level so that we expect a tytiical (mean) life style
profile of a culture with individual variability about the mean value.
The anthropological inventories of cultural universals have typically been
at the institutional or aggregate level.
Third, the definitions of cultural universals is not the same as
anthropological tradition. We limit our inventory only to those
cultural universals which are salient to consumption aspects of a
society. In other words, we are delimiting the definition of cultural
universals to economic activities of individuals.
Finally, we distinguish between Personal Life Style and Normative
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Life Style in order to keep distinct: the psychological and sociological
traditions of cross-cultural research.
Personal Life Style in our theory refers to personal beliefs about
economic consumption activities of individuals in a culture. Thus,
matters such as shopping behavior, price consciousness, home
involvement, etc, become relevant areas on which to assess personal
beliefs of customerso
In our theory, Personal Life Style is presumed to be determined
by four exogeneous variables :personality development, socialization
process, education and economic development of the country. The
role of personality development in cross-cultural context is detailed
in Kluckhohn and Murray (1949) , in Hallowell (1963) and in Bamouw
(1963). The interesting areas of research seem to be the psycho-
analytic theories of clinical psychology and the cross-cultural research
on achievement motivation (McClelland 1963), In addition, Sheth (1962)
has liberalized Maslow's holistic theory of hierarchy of needs to
cultural aggregates.
There is considerablv^ llterat re in anthropology and sociology
on the socialization process or child rearing practices and its
influence on Personal Life Style (Mead 1928 and 1930; Benedict 1946;
Le Vine 19G1).
Surprisingly, the influence of education and economic development
in shaping Personal Life Style in a cross-cultural context is not fully
researched, A notable except, is Hagen's theory of social change (1962)
as a function of economic development.
Normative Life Style refers to the normat5.ve beliefs individuals
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possess as to how they are expected by the culture to behave with
respect to economic activities. It refers to the economic and
consutqation value system of a culture and is directly relevant to
the perennial question of economic and consumption rationality.
Normative Life Style is. typically determined by tradition,
religion and societal roles and norms. An excellent reference
source on this is the review chapter by Blake and Davis (1964),
3, Generalized Opinion Leadership refers to the presence of a
select, small group of individuals and institutions who are assigned
or who have achieved the roles of gate keepers, change agents or
opinion leaders. Contrary to the suggestion of Katz and Lazarsfeld
(1954) , we believe it is more fruitful to think of Generalized
Opinion Leadership instead of specific opinion leadership in cross-
cultural context.
Generalized Opinion Leadership will vary from culture to
culture with respect to size, structure of interaction and active
participation in planned change. After an exhaustive review of
somewhat controversial research in rural sociology and marketing,
we have isolated four exogeneous variables for which there is some
conclusive evidence about their role in determining opinion leadership
in a culture. These variables are social elite, social structure,
cosraopoliteness and expertise (See Rogers 1962, Rogers and Shoemaker
1971), The greater the skewness of distribution of individuals
with regard to these four variables the more will be the presence of
Generalized Opinion Leadership and its influence on Propensity To
Change,
4, Communication About Innovation consists of the input variables.
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It refers to the various traditional elements of a communication
mix-source, channel and content - except that it is adapted to the
cross-cultural research on innovations*
The source variables are of three types: commercial sources such
as MNCs, the neutral sources such as noncommercial broadcasts, press
releases and governmental reports, and the social sources including
friends and relatives. This classification of source was first
suggested by Cox (1967) and later adapted by Howard and Sheth (1969,
Chapter 8) » In general, the social sources are found to be most
credible and the commercial sources least credible, although, this
may be mediated by the culture's degree of saturation of commercial
sources of communication. We do find that in many underdeveloped
countries, advertising and promotion are considered highly entertaining
and without bias.
The channel of communication is broadly dichotomized as significative
and symbolic communication following Howard and Sheth (1969), We
think the traditional channel classification - print, broadcast,
outdoors - is less meaningful in c7"oss-culturai context due to vast
technological, legal, moral and economic differences among countries
which limit the scope of various channels of communication. Significative
cominunication refars to the comxriunication about the innovation through
the physical product itself. The channels for such a communication are
free sanrples, store displays, exhibitions, trade fairs and the like.
As Howard and Sheth (1969s Chapter 9) point out the advantage of the
significative communication is that it enables the buyer to utilize
all of his five senses in evaluating the product. Symbolic communication
on the other hand, is limited to linguistic and pictorial representation.
The typical channels are the mass media for symbolic coumunication
-17-
although more subtle forms include direct mail, leaflets and packaging
information* The buyer can receive symbolic information only through
a combination of the two senses of vision and hearing.
We believe that symbolic communication is further limited by
the problems of linguistic representation in cross-cultural marketing
because languages differ substantially in their encoding abilities.
In short, we think significative communication, when possible, is
likely to prove superior^ in the cross-cultural context of marketing*
The content of communication consists of a number of characteristics
of an innovation which have been found to be critical in the success
or failure of that innovation. Rural Sociology abounds with research
evidence and is neatly summarized by Rogers and Shoemaker (1971)*
Based upon this research, we have included five characteristics as
content variables: relative advantage, cotq)atibility, coqplexity,
trialability, and observability of Innovation. Relative advantage
is the degree to which an innovation is perceived as better than the
product or service it supercedes in terms of economic, social or
physical consequences arising from consumption* Compatibility is
the degree to which an innovation is perceived as being consistent
with the existing values, past experiences and needs of the customers.
Complexity is the degree to which the innovation is perceived as
difficult to understand and use, Trialability is the degree to which
it may be experimented with on a limited basis. Finally, observability
is the degree to which the consequences of the innovation are visible
to others (Rogers and Shoemaker 1971, pp. 22-23),
As an input variable we are not in a position at this time to
explain its structure and changes in a specific communication. To
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that extent, it is also an exogeneous variable,
5, Cognitive Distortion refers to the process of decoding the
communication about innovation and making sense of the information
in such a way as to be conrdstent with other knowledge about the
innovation and related alternatives*
It represents both qvcrtzitativ'.i and qualitative changes individuals
make in order to con^jrehencl and sasiriilate infoitriatloa, U'e include
selective attention, exposure and retention as part of cognitive distortion.
The outcome of this cognitive distortion can be visualized as stiicalus-
as-coded (s-a-c) which when compared to the actual stimulus represents
the magnitude of distortion, Stimuius-as-coded may vary with respect
to both the denotative and connotative meaning of information
communicated about the innovation as part of cognitive distortion.
There are strong cross-cultural differpncss in the magnitude
(level) and variability of cognitive distortion due to at least four
exogeneous variables (DeVos and Hippler 1959; French 1963), The first
exogeneous variable is language. It is argued that both vocabulary
and syntactic structux'e of a langu? ^e govern the process of thinking
to a significant degree, "^ome have evan suggested that the more readily
codable a specific experience or Ir-ehavior, the crore readily it can be
communicated and tri-?' •
"-•'-i-i-. Finally, there is recently considerable
effort to understa.nd the effect of language on thought processes by
way of "emic" (content and meaning as experienced by the participants
in a culture) and "etic" (outside normative impositions on cultural
distinctions) approaches,
A second exogeneous variable is familiarity. The more familiar
the product class to a culture, the less will be the cognitive distortion
of communication about the innovation, A third exogeneous variable
-19-
is tentative and has a controversial history. It is the concept of
animism proposed by Piaget (1952), Animism refers to concrete
thinking or experiencial thinking often found in children by which
the individual tends to vitalize inanimate objects. A number of
anthropologists have believed that animistic thinking is more prevalent
in primitive societies whereas, abstract thinking is more prevalent
in mature societies. The reader is also urged to carefully review
Bruner, Olver, and Greenfield (1966) for a critical analysis of
Piaget* s theory in cross-cultural context.
The fourth exogeneous variable is education. Although, there is
very little cross-cultural research on the influence of education in
cognitive processes, we believe it is an in5)ortant variable because
of strong differences in literacy levels of countries. Presumably,
the cognitive distortion is likely to be less in a more educated
society than in a less educated society holding other factors constant.
In addition to the four exogeneous variables, there is a feedback
effect on cognitive distortion from propensity to change. The greater
the interest in a change, the less .•?iil he. cognitive distortion.
6. Evaluation of Inr.ovaticn is another central construct in our
theory. It refers to the degree of perceived instrumentality the
innovation offers to a culture in satisfaction of its wants, needs
and desires in a specific product class. We presume that each innovation
can be profiled from the point of \'iew of consumers in a country with
respect to the five basic characteristics of innovations, namely
relative advantage, compatibility, complexity, trialability and
observability.
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A positive or negative evaluation of the innovation is directly
related to three factors: Propensity To Change, Cultural Life Style
and Coraraunication About Innovation, The greater the Propensity lo
Change, the more positive will be the evaluation of the innovation.
The more congruent the innovation to Cultural Life Style the more
positively it will be evaluated by the culture. Finally, the
communication efforts of the MNC or other sources can bias the positive
evaluation of the innovation.
Once again, we believe that these three variables are compensatory
in their relationship. However, the Propensity To Change and Cultural
Life Style may be correlated predictors and hence entail the multi-
collinearity problem,
7, Cognitive Sea.rch is the active seeking of information the customers
manifest between the time they are aware of the existence of an
innovation and the decision to adopt it. Cognitive Search is directly
controlled by Evaluation of Innovation, The greater the ambiguity of
evaluation, the more will be Cognitive Search, Second, the greater
the mixture of positive and negative aspects of evaluation, the more
will be the presence of conflict (approach-avoidance tjrpe) and greater
will be the search effort to resolve the conflict. Finally, Cognitive
Search will be activated by Adoption Tendency which will be explained
later.
Cognitive Search may lead the customers to active seek further
information either from the input variables or from opinion leaders
in the country,
8, Adoption Tendency refers to the liklihood of the culture adopting
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the innovation within & prespecified tirae. It reflects the psychological
commitment on the part of the consumers to either accept or reject the
innovation.
Adoption Tendency is primarily a function of the profile difference
between evaluation of the innovation and the alternative it is likely
to replace. This profile difference is with respect to the five
characteristics of innovations we discussed above. The greater the
difference favoring the innovation, the more likely will the culture
commit itself to adopt it. If the positive difference is with respect
to all the five characteristics, the diffusion time of the innovation
will be very short. On the other hand, if the positive difference is only
with respect to some of the characteristics, there will be an incubation
period during which the country will nmnifest Cognitive Search from
outside sources.
Positive difference alone, however, is not sufficient to generate
psychological comiaitment toward the innovation. We have isolated three
exogeneous variables which are likely to inhibit Adoption Tendency. The
first is per capita income of the country. Even though the innovation
may be highly favored and superior ':o existing alternatives, it may
not be adopted at all or adoted very slowly if the economic resources
of people are scarce. Similarly, a highly favored innovation may not
diffuse as rapidly due to the lack of proper marketing institutions
especially with respect to distribution and communication. We are all
aware of the acute problems of distribution in the rural areas of less
developed countries. Finally, the more value a culture places on time
as the scarce resource, the more rapid a diffusion the innovation will
experience. This is especially true of innovations which are based on
technological breakthroughs.
22-
9, Adoption is the actual assimilation of the innovation into a
culture on a permanent basis, Ic can be gauged by the level of
saturation of the innovation in the country.
Adoption is the consequence of Adoption Tendency, However, we
presume that the consumers in a country- try the new product or service
on a limited basis especially those who are the innovators or the gate
keepers and assess the impact of innovation on the culture. If this
assessment is negative, the innovation will not be adopted. On the
other hand, a positive assessment by a small number of people in the
country will determine the possibility of permanent adoption by the
culture. Murdoch (1965) refers to this as process of social acceptance.
Even if the innovation is given a go ahead by the gate keepers
of the society, it may not be fully adopted by the country due to a
number of nonpredictable situational factors. These factors are too
many and too randor.i to systematically sort them out and typologize.
However, we include a aumber of ad hoc events such as natural disasters,
war, government turnover, and the like,
10, Consaquences . Adoption if innovations entail Consequences for the
culture, i^e have shovm thit es the feedback effects on Cultural Life
Style, E-v'aluation of Inno\-3i:ion .^nd Generalized Opinion Leadership,
The feedback effect on Evaluation of Innovation is more based on the
tradition of cognitive dis^rnance, Th<^ feedback effect of adoption on
Cultural Life Styl -- ' Generalized Opinion Leadership (and, therefore,
on Propensity To Cbjinge) can best be characterized as process of cultural
change , Murdock (19S5) has provided an exhaustive classification of
the process of cultural change vrhich v/e believe is relevant to the
research on cross-cultural buyer behavior, Murdock distinguishes
-23-
four different types of innovations:
a* Variation when the innovation represents a slight modification
of preexisting habits* This is exemplified by the introduction
of a new brand or a new packagG, Howard and Sheth (1969) call
this a minor innovation,
b. Invention v;hen the innovation involves transfer of elements
of habitual behavior from one situational context to another,
or their combination into new syntheses. Most of the technological
breakthroughs which have created new tj^es within a product class
fall into this category, Howard and Sheth call these as normal
innovations,
c. Tentation are altogether new product classes and generate new
habits. There is little or no continuity with the past in this
type of innovation. Howard and Sheth call this as major innovations,
d. Cultural Borrowing when existing habits of one culture are
transferred to other cultures. Cultural borrowing is by far the
most conimon practice among the MNCs, There is no comparable
classification in Howard-Sheth Theory,
^* Integration when related habits are also adopted as part of
the derived deriard resulting from some major innovation. For
example, the introduction of television, automobile, computers
and air travel in less dcvp.loped countries have brought about
demand for related goods and services.
-24-
Summary Statement
We have described in a very brief way a comprehensive theory of
cross-cultural buyer behavior. The the»jry is our first serious attempt
to integrate research from anthropology and diffusion theory and apply it
to the area of cross-cultural buyer behavior. This is, therefore, not
our final draft but only a preliminary draft. We hope it generates
Interest among our colleagues so that we may revise it and make it rigorous
based on their comments and criticism.
-25-
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